The Boy Who Grew Up and the Girl Who Never Did
by RicardianScholar Clark-Weasley
Summary: it's closing time for the office and Tom Levin get's a ghostly visitor who reminds him who he is and what he has become. Tom/Rose, Tom/Other


It was five o'clock, the sun was starting to set and work was slowly drifting to an end. He would be able to go home, kiss his wife, email his best friend and go to sleep after a good round of making love, hoping a baby was growing in his wife's belly.

Damnit he should be happy!

Instead he was tugging at his tie irritably and looking out at the open road, wishing desperately that he was free with his guitar in one hand and a small girl with deep blue eyes in the other.

Everything was gray here. His suit, his office, his work, his wife was rather beige and though he loved her she was never going to be enough. He wonders how it all came like this. Where he went wrong.

Tiny little fingers touched his mouth and pushed at the corners of his lips. "Smile" she whispered, a crooked guilty smile on her own was enough to make him smile. "That's better" she pulled away and her feet were swinging back and forth as she perched on his desk. "I never thought you'd be a boring office man"

"How did you get in here?" he murmured.

"Ah, I think the question should be, _why are you here"_

He sighed. "Why are you here, Rose?"

"I wasn't talking about me, I was talking about you" she looked at him with an intense critical stare. It was a stare she had perfected long before they met. She was after all a very critical person, especially when it came to her father. "This is not the Tom Levin I know"

"Well maybe you never knew me" he shot back.

She shrugged. "Maybe. After all I only knew you since you were twelve and you're what, twenty eight?"

"Thirty" he growled. "I turned thirty last month and you were twenty five last August"

"Now, now Tom. Age is only a number and you're only old as you feel. Right now I'm probably eight; everyone is always telling me what to do and treating me like a child"

"Well maybe if you acted your age you would treated your age"

"And maybe if you lived a _little_-"

He stood up. "Is that it? You're going to show up every so often just to tell me to live?"

"Hey, I wouldn't complain if I were you. Some people would carry on living like robots but not you. You have your own personal angel telling you to get out there and smell the roses so to speak"

He leaned over her, his arms caging her in as he took a deep breath. She smelled like paint, must and something sweet that was undeniably Rose Casson. "I smelt the roses, happy?" he whispered, enjoying the pink tinge on her pale cheeks, he immediately stepped back and gave her a lazy grin. "You're no angel Rose Casson; you were always a cheeky little demon"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah but you loved me anyway" she pushed her dark hair back and avoided eye contact. He never admitted it and she never had a chance to truly realise. "You're not in love with you wife"

"Are you sure that's not jealousy speaking?"

"Damnit Tom! This has nothing to do with me! You love your wife, she's kind, she's there and she's rather pretty. But you're not in love with her. She doesn't make your heart beat a little faster, she doesn't make you want to come home and you feel nothing when you touch her. You need to get out and find someone you could fall madly passionately in love with"

"But not you"

She looked away, her dark hair curtaining her face. "You can never fall in love with me" she whispered.

"A bit too late with that one, aren't you?"

She stood up. "So what? So what if I'm gone? It shouldn't matter that I'm out of reach; it shouldn't prevent you from living your life! What ever happened to being a rock star or teaching music? What happened living out in the open and sleeping under the stars? What happened to love, laughter and living? What happened to you Tom Levin?"

Her breath was coming out in little pants, her chest moving up and down faster and her eyes look wild and passionate. It was raw natural Rose and reminded him a little bit of the day they met after she ran and dodged every car just to meet him.

So he kissed her.

He kissed her with every little bit of love, lust, hate and grieve he had pent up in him from the day she left.

And she kissed back. Just as desperate, as passionate and wild.

He pulled away when the need to breathe overpowered him. He leaned back against the cool glass of his window and stared back at her. Her hair was long dark brown, fell over her shoulders and covered her chest majority of the time. Her deep blue eyes that had various shades of blue sparkled more with its thick black eye liner and mascara and her red lips were smudged from the kiss. She wore a black corset top, short black pleated skirt with fishnets and motorbike boots. Her bare arms were covered in black and white stripy arm-warmers, both ears were pierced now, the silver guitar necklace could be seen from where he was standing and he knew she had at least two or three cheap plastic rose shaped rings.

She had never aged. She looked forever young, as always.

"Grow up Rose Casson. The world is a difficult place to live in and sometimes you have to ignore your dreams"

"It's a bit hard to grow up when you're dead" she told him coldly. He flinched and she softened. Her hard eyes gave away to sympathy. "You could never get over that little fact could you? Face it Tom, I died. I was a little drunk, acted stupid and got caught up in the car accident-"

"Stop it"

"The ambulance barely got there in time and I had tubes stuck down me as they tried to keep me breathing-"

"Shut up!"

"I was bleeding, too much. Both externally and internally. The odds were stacked against me and I died before I could make it to the surgery table-"

"I SAID SHUT UP!"

She smiled at him sadly. "Just because I died doesn't mean you have to as well"

He sat down at his desk and groaned. "I'm just stressed that's all. You're a figment of my imagination"

She shrugged. "Probably"

He toyed with the corner of her skirt. "Your name is Permanent Rose. You're supposed to be permanent, no backsies. You're not supposed to disappear or fade away, you're supposed to be here forever" he clenched his fist, crumpling her skirt. "You're not supposed to be six feet under with such a plain headstone! You're vibrant, alive, passion in it's fullest and yet you're dead!"

"I know but you're not"

"I love you"

"And I, you. Ever so much"

And then she vanished. As if she was never there before. Once again Tom Levin's heart broke.

He started to cry.

He cried and cried until he couldn't. By then the office was dark and silent and it was well past six. He robotically got up and drove home, to his loving wife who smiled at him warmly.

Her smile faded when she saw the red eyes. "Tom?" she said concerned.

"I'm sorry" he whispered.

She cried as well. She was still crying when he left, bag in one hand and guitar in another. Wedding ring on the coffee table.

"Why?" she asked. "Why? Why? Why?"

"I grew up too fast and forgot how to live"

As she burst into a fresh set of tears, he wondered if she preferred him saying he had another woman than practically admitting he's been dead all this time.


End file.
